Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Thursday, April 17, 2008
Remembering governors: Faces going on posters
The work of a La Crosse man will allow the faces of Wisconsin’s governors to easily be displayed on the walls of fourth-grade classrooms.
Ralph Whiting said there wasn’t a central location to see the men who had led the state until his Governors of Wisconsin poster was produced this spring.
“You could find the written format but not the pictorial format,” Whiting said. “I thought it would be good to have (a poster) going back to 1848.”
To take a quiz that will test your knowledge of Wisconsin governors, click here.
The project produced 5,000 posters that will be distributed to fourth-grade classrooms, school media centers, and public and academic libraries at no charge.
It was funded by a grant from the Wisconsin Educational Medial and Technology Association Permanent Endowment Trust and Wisconsin Retired Educators’ Association Foundation.
The La Crosse School District already has received its copies, and Whiting plans to deliver 700 next week to schools in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha.
Framed copies will be given to the surviving former governors, and the poster will hang at the state capital.
“I’ve talked with teachers, and they saw a need,” Whiting said.
Whiting spent 37 years in education and worked for 12 years as the La Crosse School District supervisor of school library media programs and technology.
But it was while he was teaching fourth-grade teachers — who are required to teach Wisconsin history and geography — at Viterbo University that he conceived the idea.
Gubernatorial facts
Five facts about Wisconsin’s governors:
Arthur MacArthur was governor for four days in 1856.
Orland Loomis was elected governor in 1942 but died before he was sworn into office.
Walter Goodland was 80 when he was sworn into office in 1943.
Robert M. La Follette Sr. and Philip F. La Follette, and Walter J. Kohler Sr. and Walter J. Kohler Jr. were father and son elected to serve.
Cadwallader Washburn, 1872-1872, and George Peck, 1891-1895, lived in La Crosse.
Source: Ralph Whiting
Autumn Grooms can be reached at (608) 791-8424 or agrooms@lacrossetribune.com.
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